Teenagers Need Lots of Sleep

Adelie Penguin chicks grow to be 30 times their birth weight in just 50 days. This is an extraordinary growth rate, and they will need to grow a completely new set of feathers as well before they can be on their own. To support that rate of growth, each chick eats about 60 lbs in that 50 day period.

It seems all the chicks do is eat and sleep. Depending on the weather, we see them bundled up against each other, sprawled out on the ground like kids at the beach, using their friends as a mattress, finding a soft rock to curl up on, or even sleeping on their heads. When the parents return from foraging for food they stand near the crèche and call their chick. Instantly the chick wakes up and begins begging for its meal. Besides sleeping, eating is a chick's favorite thing to do.

All sorts of living things call Earth’s polar regions home – from tiny lichens encrusting the rocky landscapes of the Arctic tundra to huge blue whales swimming through the frigid waters of the Southern...more

Today, Nov 18, 2007, we arrived at the Adelie Penguin breeding colony at Cape Royds on Ross Island, Antarctica. This year about 2000 pairs of penguins have decided to build their nests and raise their...more

The breeding season for Adelie Penguins is Nov-Feb. This is summertime for Antarctica even though the temperature rarely gets above freezing. Our team of penguin researchers left the states on a journey...more

All Adelie Penguin nests are not alike. These birds have different ideas of what makes a pretty nest. Rocks are the only material available, but variations in construction abound. Some are big, over 2...more

Most of the eggs at Cape Royds are laid before the end of November. The breeding season is very short because the Antarctic summer is very short. If Adelie parents do not get their chicks raised and fledged...more

Cape Royds is the nesting ground for over 2000 breeding pairs of Adelie Penguins. The only other Antarctic penguin, the Emperor, does not make a nest. Instead Emperor Penguins keep the eggs warm by holding...more

With the return of the Adelie Penguins to Cape Royds, the predatory South Polar Skua is not far behind. These birds will makes their nests and lay their eggs very near or within the penguin colony. First...more